Agape"Alchemy" 1971 US Gospel Hard Rock.
- 11 years ago
Agape "Gospel Hard Rock" 1971
Yep! Perhaps it could only happen in America. This California outfit (from Azusa) are preaching the gospel using a hard rock format and musically it's pretty good too. Fred Caban was the brain behind the project - he wrote the lyrics, music and supplies the vocals on all the tracks. The opening cut on the first album Blind is pretty bluesy, there's plenty of fuzz on tracks like Trust and a good echoed guitar on Freedom. The magnum opus is the final track, Rejoice, which deals with the end of the world and the coming of Christ. Imaginative, maybe even psychedelic, this track in particular is well worth a listen. Their second album is more laid back than the first but both are equally sought- after.
1971 original LP with four individual photos on back cover. There’s a cover variation with a live band picture on the back cover. It was “reissued” in the ’80s by the Italian label Hablabel, and was more-officially reissued in the mid-90s on the Agape label.
“A well-known item even 20 years ago, though now it’s been surpassed by many recent discoveries in its genre, which is Christian psych/hard rock with a Hendrix/Blue Cheer vibe. Suffers from a rather stiff sound and lyrics that are upfront/preachy the wrong way,but has a couple of good tracks, and an appealing spoken apocalyptic section on the closer. Still, the Exkursions is a better LP in a similar style.” [PL] – The Acid Archives (First Edition).
The ’80s Italian vinyl reissue can be found on the Discogs marketplace for as little as twenty bucks, a mint/mint vinyl original on the Mark label with the four individual band members on the back cover will set you back a bit more, probably somewhere in the $150-200 range.
Yep! Perhaps it could only happen in America. This California outfit (from Azusa) are preaching the gospel using a hard rock format and musically it's pretty good too. Fred Caban was the brain behind the project - he wrote the lyrics, music and supplies the vocals on all the tracks. The opening cut on the first album Blind is pretty bluesy, there's plenty of fuzz on tracks like Trust and a good echoed guitar on Freedom. The magnum opus is the final track, Rejoice, which deals with the end of the world and the coming of Christ. Imaginative, maybe even psychedelic, this track in particular is well worth a listen. Their second album is more laid back than the first but both are equally sought- after.
1971 original LP with four individual photos on back cover. There’s a cover variation with a live band picture on the back cover. It was “reissued” in the ’80s by the Italian label Hablabel, and was more-officially reissued in the mid-90s on the Agape label.
“A well-known item even 20 years ago, though now it’s been surpassed by many recent discoveries in its genre, which is Christian psych/hard rock with a Hendrix/Blue Cheer vibe. Suffers from a rather stiff sound and lyrics that are upfront/preachy the wrong way,but has a couple of good tracks, and an appealing spoken apocalyptic section on the closer. Still, the Exkursions is a better LP in a similar style.” [PL] – The Acid Archives (First Edition).
The ’80s Italian vinyl reissue can be found on the Discogs marketplace for as little as twenty bucks, a mint/mint vinyl original on the Mark label with the four individual band members on the back cover will set you back a bit more, probably somewhere in the $150-200 range.